Toddlers learn how to make things happen by watching other people

A new I-LABS study shows that even children as young as two can learn valuable causal lessons from watching what others do.

24-month-old toddlers were able to learn new cause-and-effect relationships simply by “eavesdropping” on other people’s interactions with both people and objects. Toddlers were even able to learn when faced with imperfect causal evidence, when causes worked some, but not all of the time. The results demonstrate how observation of others’ actions on both objects and other people can contribute to children’s rapid learning during infancy and in early childhood.